Especially if you believe Jon Bon Jovi, Larry Tanenbaum and the Rogers family.

QMI Agency has been reliably informed by multiple sources that the sole Toronto group bidding on the NFL team is now telling people, and will tell the trust overseeing the sale of the Buffalo Bills, that it is committed to keeping the NFL franchise in Western New York.

It's just a matter of whether the trustees, NFL owners and Western New Yorkers believe them. If Bills message boards are any indication since Friday, the latter sure ain't happenin'.

On Friday we reported that the Toronto-based Rogers family has joined Bon Jovi (frontman for his namesake rock band) and Tanenbaum (chairman of Maple Leaf Sports & Entertainment) in their ownership pursuit of the Bills, and that each has about a one-third financial stake. Bon Jovi is the principal prospective owner.

In April, QMI Agency was first to report with certainty after Ralph Wilson's death that Bon Jovi and Tanenbaum (a) had firm plans to bid on the Bills, and (b) that their intention was to relocate the team to Toronto at the earliest opportunity.

But part (b) came into question on June 30. That's when former NFL quarterback and ESPN analyst Ron Jaworski told Buffalo media that Bon Jovi -- his good friend and former business partner -- never had plans to relocate the Bills from Buffalo.

The comment spoke volumes.

Later that day I surmised in a column that the Toronto group apparently had begun "to get out the message that it will not -- repeat, not -- relocate the team from Western New York."

A source now says that that conclusion was correct.

For the record, neither Bon Jovi nor Tanenbaum has ever said word-one publicly about buying the Bills, let alone about relocating the club. Ditto Edward Rogers III, deputy chairman of his family's Canadian telecom empire.

Why the about-face last month? Several reasons.

First, the Bills' restrictive lease and novel non-relocation agreement (NRA) with Erie County and the state of New York to play at county-owned Ralph Wilson Stadium virtually precludes relocation before a one-time, $28.4-million opt-out in 2020. Otherwise, through 2022.

The Toronto group likely accepts that the various lease hurdles are insurmountable before next decade. Even if the Toronto trio were to fight the lease in court and win, a $400-million penalty would trigger at that point, per the stadium agreements.

Know that the trio does NOT have an extra 400-mil lying around.

And perhaps they accepted what we've been asserting since April, that a new Bills owner with known relocation intentions would necessarily subject the franchise to either five or eight seasons of lame-duck status in Buffalo -- a scenario that 24 of 31 NFL owners almost certainly would not have approved in an ownership vote.

Even if they are successful in buying the team, "there's nothing that says the NFL will ever give you the right to move it, irrespective of whatever the lease says," a sports franchise relocation expert told QMI Agency.

In all, just too many high hurdles.

All of which is why that same expert, in April, said that if a group covets the Bills for the sole purpose of eventually moving it to Toronto, "then I would suggest never saying that publicly. There will be some legal challenges if you are talking about it publicly."

Advice heeded?

The biggest problem for Bon Jovi, Tanenbaum and now the Rogers family is that if they are in dead earnest about keeping the Bills in Western New York, as it appears they are, then who in Western New York is going to believe them now?